My love language is definitely not receiving gifts or acts of service. I prefer friends and the husband to give me solitude and distance, to indulge the introvert. That’s the best way to show that they love me. Heck, even the dog knows that; she pretty much leaves me alone. (Unless there’s a thunderstorm, then she becomes Miss Velcro.)
Was in hibernation mode. Didn’t see the BFF for two weeks. Then suddenly, a long-lost postcard from her arrived. My jaw dropped. She wrote that postcard in January 2020, in Cozumel, Mexico. The postcard never arrived and we forgot about it. It quietly arrived in my mailbox on 25 June, 2021. Woah! I only retrieved it a few days later. The Mexico Postal Service (Correos de México) postmark stated November 2020. WOW!!! Where did the postcard travel to? Did it have to stay in lockdown for seven months too before flying out to Singapore?
It was purely coincidental that soon after, on the same day that the postcard arrived, the BFF sent over a care package. It contained a big box of Nespresso-compatible coffee capsules, a solid punnet of Rainier cherries bought from a lovely small fruit stall, and a tub of her mom’s home-brewed peach gum dessert (桃膠糖水). 🖤
I hadn’t realized that Rainier cherries are in season and have arrived in Singapore two weeks ago. The BFF did, and realized I missed the first batch of cherries. So over the weekend, she hustled down to her usual fruit stall to grab like ten kilograms of cherries. Lucky me got some! Wheeeee. The only way to still feel a bit of excitement is to eat these seasonal fruits that remind us of traveling to the orchards and farms the fruits are cultivated in. We splurge on gorgeous fruits. This is one luxury the BFF and I indulge in while stuck in Singapore for the past 1.5 years.
I have never eaten peach gum dessert (桃膠糖水) till this bowl! Besides the requisite peach gum (the resin secreted by the bark of peach trees) that pretty much looks like a brown fibrous mess, the BFF’s mom added in so many ingredients that it almost tasted like cheng tng (清湯). It certainly looks like it! Besides dried longan, one could also use pears or lychees in this dessert. The mom didn't add that much sugar in it. I didn't need to dilute it. I simply added ice cubes to it (although it came out of the fridge), so it was really quite lovely.
As I sipped the chilled bowl, it dawned on me why I would think that this tasted like cheng tng. Traditionally, the peach gum dessert doesn’t contain pandan leaves or the cheng tng essential ingredient of of buah kembang semangkuk, which is the mature seed of the malva nut tree. (The Chinese name of said ingredient is hilarious- 胖大海.) However, I understand that nowadays, many Asian-Chinese dessert shops don't use use buah kembang semangkuk anymore; they replace it with peach gum. It's easier to soak and soften dried peach gum than to remove the husk and outer seed to get to the usable portion of the kembang semangkuk.
No wonder I thought peach gum dessert tasted similar to cheng tng! It essentially is, in today's terms; it's especially similar to the ones sold at the Asian-Chinese dessert shops, even the 'good' ones. My generation 's tastebuds might already not even discern the differences. The Malay stalls still use buah kembang semangkuk in drinks though, or some stalls still offer it boiled simply with longans and brown sugar, and maybe red dates. Almost similar to air katira. Buah kembang semangkuk has got a super distinctive taste that I'll know instantly if a dessert shop uses it to make a proper bowl of cheng tng.
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